Dream in Dior: Crafting the Future With Agility
Damien Bertrand // Managing Director // Christian Dior
Christian Dior Couture, the ‘House of Dreams’, is recognised for its French heritage and unique culture. In 2021, our growth will once again depend on unprecedented agility, creativity, and resilience. As we explore more deeply our ‘Dream in Dior’ vision, I would like to shine a spotlight on the fantastic team that help make this dream a reality.
It all started in the 1940s with one unique vision. I love the following quote from Monsieur Dior: “We owe to tradition to be disruptive… to keep it alive and actual every time again”. I think this quote embodies the nuanced balance between tradition and disruption that perfectly represents the spirit of Dior.
In 1947, Christian Dior’s first collection sparked a revolution in the fashion world. The Corolle collection, or the “New Look”, with its sculptural, opulent silhouettes, helped women in the post-war period to realise the Dream of a more joyful, elegant and beautiful future. This “New Look” continues to be reinterpreted even today.
As classic as it is visionary, the Maison Christian Dior Couture has a rich and extraordinary cultural heritage rooted in the French tradition of couture, elegance, romance and refinement. This tension between disruption and tradition is very much alive in the Maison today.
Creativity and vision remain the heart and soul of Dior. Our mission is to protect and develop the legacy of the Maison while continuing to draw upon it as a source of inspiration and pride. This brings me to our new vision for the Maison: ‘Dream in Dior’.
“What does it mean to Dream in Dior?”
The Dream in Dior vision is to preserve and nurture the brand by reinforcing its desirability and relevance in all major markets. This vision honours Christian Dior’s historical and traditional values (French elegance, couture and femininity), but also reposition Dior as the “House of Dreams”; more vibrant, more appealing for a younger audience, daring, innovative and disruptive, with accents of joyfulness and an injection of explosive creativity.
What does it mean to Dream in Dior? Today, Dior is colourful and chic, spontaneous, rather than formal; welcoming, rather than intimidating; modern rather than traditional and surprising rather than uniform.
Bringing ‘The Dream’ to life means embracing the creativity of our Artistic Directors. The spark of their vision lights up the Maison as we seek to translate it into product innovation and distinctive client experiences.
In essence, Dior is the beautiful conversation that happens between creativity and business. Our ‘Dream in Dior’ strategy has three distinct pillars: innovation, daring spirit, and agility.
“Intuition backed by innovation”
At Dior, embracing innovation means pioneering digital transformation to help support our intuition. A great example of this is a partnership with an artificial intelligence start-up to relaunch our iconic Saddle bag. After spotting micro-influencers carrying the Saddle again on Instagram in 2018, we sensed the bag was about to make a comeback. We were able to use an AI image-search algorithm to follow these signals, determine who was carrying the Saddle and confirm the studio’s intuition. As a result of harnessing innovation to support our insight, the Saddle relaunch turned out to be the best bag relaunch in our history.
Drawing on another form of innovation, in summer 2018, we launched the Dior Book Tote. With its inimitable 3D-effect embroidery, we knew there was something special about this bag. We knew the Book Tote’s one-of-a-kind shape and unique “savoir-faire” with more than 1.5 million stitches made the bag very hard to produce. But that’s what we do at Dior; we dare, we dream and we succeed or learn. The challenge drew us together; we created a true partnership with our atelier in Italy, giving them the support and the necessary resources to deliver our Artistic Director, Maria Grazia Chiuri’s vision, for this bag. Now the Dior Book Tote is one of Dior’s most iconic bags.
“If you dare, you can disrupt”
Drawing on that explosive creativity and daring spirit, in 2020, Dior Men Artistic Director Kim Jones also partnered with the Jordan Brand to unveil the limited-edition Dior Air Jordan 1 sneaker. This was a surprising new frontier for us in fashion partnerships, but we knew that Dior and Nike were a great match in terms of taking our brand to a young and vibrant audience. We launched in July 2020 with 35 pop-up stores – and all sneakers sold out in less than a week. Thanks to a highly desirable design and our partnership with Nike, we were able to reach a lot of new customers.
We have also been quite disruptive in taking our brand into new territories including Dioriviera, our first ever beach capsule collection and Dior Chez Moi outdoor-ready loungewear, perfect for working from home.
“If you want to be ahead of the game, you need to move faster.”
We live in a world where agility is key; in fashion, if you want to be ahead of the game, you need to move faster. To make the Dream a reality, we need to make our products visible, both in store and in impactful communications. It’s worth noting that staying agile has been difficult throughout the pandemic – and, like many, we have been stretched and challenged. Last year, for example, we looked at the calendar and said, “In July, no matter what happens, Dior will be back.” After making sure our teams were taken care of, we launched the biggest round of activity in our history, with a couture presentation using miniature versions of our couture dresses, a cruise collection show in Lecce (Italy), the launch of the new Bobby bag, the Jordan collaboration, and our “Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams” exhibition in Shanghai. Importantly, we went through this very difficult time staying true to our vision.
“Where does agility start? Our people…”
All this achievement brings me to the real treasure at Dior: our people. Maintaining the vision and pace needed to make our Dream a reality relies on developing our talents and recruiting new ones. Christian Dior Couture, the ‘House of Dreams’ is recognised for its French Heritage and spirited culture. Our Maison is a destination for sustainable success, where we shape the future of our talents in a positive and generous environment. We deliver excellence with passion, determination, courage and optimism.
Anyone can be part of this journey. Seeking out those with the creative, business and digital skills needed to take Dior into the future is just as important as crafting our newest collections. If we want to attract all generations of clients, we need all generations of talent. This is the reason I am so invested in speaking to students from all over the world, especially at my own school, HEC Paris.
During my e-conference “Craft the Future With Agility” by LVMH, Dior and HEC, Associate Dean for Education Track and Pedagogy and LVMH Academic Chair Anne Michaut and her students asked me to share what I feel has helped me succeed in my position. In addition to the privilege of learning from some incredibly talented leaders, I have also learned to continually make use of both my right and left brain in order to switch seamlessly between creative and business conversations. Additionally, I believe it’s essential to be ready to embrace opportunities whenever they may arise and to be daring and take risks. Most importantly, always remember that without your team, nothing is possible. You will not change anything if you are not committed to working as one team to achieve your goals.
I’d love to hear what you think about our vision. Please do share your thoughts with the #DreamInDior hashtag.
